Gold on jack and phono plug/socket

[Lostgallifreyan]

Very roughly what sort of additional resistance would a nickel
plating have or how does the nickel's resistance compare to a plating
of regular metal on the connector?

I doubt it's worth quantifying for signal connectors, not even those from
moving coil cartridges, where electrolytic action in corrosion is the
problem, not the initial resistance. Nickel is used with chromium in high
temperature resistance wire, for heaters, but in a thin plate with large
surface area, it will be micro-ohms or less, probably.

 

[Lostgallifreyan]

Gold a poor conductor?

I though silver was better than copper and better still was gold.

Oh well.

Easy thing to fall for, progression through the masses in the periodic
table might indicate that it ought to be.. I've wondered about this one. If
anyone has a nice laymans-terms explanation, now would be a very good time
to post it.

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

I doubt it's worth quantifying for signal connectors, not even those from
moving coil cartridges, where electrolytic action in corrosion is the
problem, not the initial resistance. Nickel is used with chromium in high
temperature resistance wire, for heaters, but in a thin plate with large
surface area, it will be micro-ohms or less, probably.

Gold over copper virtually always has a much thicker layer of nickel
underneath anyway (as a barrier). Often nickel is used on other metals
as well before gold plating. The bling is just a surface treatment,
and the metals used underneath will dominate the total connector
resistance.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

 

[hob]

Yeah, I guess it is, and to think, there was no gold on those contacts! I
wonder why they lasted so long? I never even gave them a thought in all
these years.

they wipe - some of the RCA connectors, on the other hand, turn a pleasing
fuzzy tan

 

[ian field]

they wipe - some of the RCA connectors, on the other hand, turn a pleasing
fuzzy tan

That's nicotine stain!

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

I have an assortment of 80s and later amps around here, some bought by
me, some just given to me because they were "broke".
Every damned one of them has a bad input/output selector switch. Why
is it so hard for these companies to come up with a switch that works,
even when the equipment costs several hunderd 198x dollars? These
switches are of some proprietary design that you can't easily
replace with a decent off the shelf switch.
I ended up jumpering the switch out on a few of them, just to use one
input reliably for my MP3 players. The amp chip/module itself is
fairly bulletproof.

Try "Coolamp" silver plating, if you want to repair the worn
contacts. It is used to replate large roller inductors and antenna
switches at AM radio stations. I'm told that it lasts as long as a new
part would, if the plating is thick enough. Replating the contacts of a
small switch wouldn't be easy, but don properly it would outlast the
original part.


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida